Following the goings on in Pakistan at the start of the week I tweeted on Monday night, 2nd May a gag that went thusly - "Coincidentally, an anagram of Osama Bin Laden is "Lob da man in sea". It got retweeted by a few people the same evening, each acknowledging me as the author and I thought no more about it. It was nice that it made some people laugh. Imagine my surprise however when I discovered that it has since been repeated word for word thousands of times since without any writer's credit and turned up on Russell Howard's Good News show last night!
Now, I am not saying that no one else could have thought of that anagram, but what I am saying is, and here's the proof, (a Google timeline to that exact phrase) that the first online use anywhere in the world of the exact phrase - Coincidentally, an anagram of Osama Bin Laden is "Lob da man in sea"- came from me last Monday at 19.04pm -> http://lpr.st/m2aSrN - If you click the 'now' link top right you can see it is still being tweeted even as I type and has been repeated thousand upon thousand of times without credit to the originator, me.
It's no biggie, but what it does demonstrate is that anything you put on twitter is game for being plagiarised - it might even end up being used on TV like this gag was. I remember the furore over Cheggers being accused of nicking jokes and I thoughtto myself if a famous comedian had written that tweet of mine they'd no doubt me making noise about it. Me, I guess I just have to be satisfied with the fact that it has been used by 1000s around the world.
